Your Vinyl Transfer Workflow (sharing best needledrop practices)*

Discussion in 'Audio Hardware' started by Vocalpoint, May 11, 2011.

  1. quicksrt

    quicksrt Senior Member

    Location:
    Los Angeles
    I go as high as 16, and nothing over, and no decrackle function. In fact I'd like to get to the point where I know when and how decrackle can be of help?

    One thing that I observe is that high settings in CR are not used (by me) because there are more ticks and clicks. I use a higher setting when the music is dense and the ticks might not stand out so much. Something like Motorhead Live or Ramones type of recording as an example. A classical LP like a violin concerto can be cleaned up with a lower setting even if it has quite a few more ticks and clicks, because those given clicks stand out more in a sparse violin / orchestra setting, easier for the software to detect them in that setting.
     
    seed_drill likes this.
  2. seed_drill

    seed_drill Senior Member

    Location:
    Tryon, NC, USA
    The "decrackle" is, presumably, for severely damaged albums, worn styrene or shellac 78s that inherently have a lot of surface noise.
     
  3. quicksrt

    quicksrt Senior Member

    Location:
    Los Angeles
    You mean that sound of worn record crackle almost like non-fill? Break-up on a cymbal / or inner groove type of thing? If it worked, I'd rather use that on just the crackle spots and leave all other sections alone. Sounds like a powerful additive would be needed to be very effective. I'll experiment. But previously I just skip doing needle drops of LPs with that much damage. My main collection is rather nicer condition stuff, a few things in the thrift store score section shelf might not be. A newish stylus on a freshly cleaned LP can get me through the worst stuff I ever deal with 99.9% of the time.
     
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  4. quicksrt

    quicksrt Senior Member

    Location:
    Los Angeles
    I had a lot of LPs I bought in 1977 to 81 or so that were kept minty and perfect. But right outta the bag there were not just a tick or two but a loud pop that would repeat for several spins. Like in Zep TSRTS, during that monologue part of WLL when Plant says "one night, one night I was laying down" and a couple loud pops that just broke my heart for years. Then Bad Co, during "The Way I Choose" which is one of the mellower tracks, and Rodgers' spectacular vocal showcase, again a few loud pops from vinyl trim left in the inner sleeve pressed into the LP.

    So those random pops and ticks I had to live with for years and years were not just sweet cozy little warm nuances, but disturbing and fairly depressing. I did get a Japanese pressing of TSRTS by 1984/85, and Bad Company I lived with until I got the CD. I worked on replacing any LP I really liked that had issues. Los Angeles used record bins were totally amazing from 1984 to 2004 or so. I was able to pick up so many nice items used in NM condition, and new imports from UK and Japan were not real expensive either, you could get Polydor UK Hendrix EL nude cover for $9.99 new, and Japanese Roger - Yardbirds $8.49, T Rex EW on Cube (real master tapes) for $3.99. I got these and was amazed at the retail prices sometimes being below the US copies.

    So anyway, I did my best to replace any LPs with issues, but there was only so much money I could spend, and some LPs stayed in collection in NM condition but manufacturing issues. So click repair is a must for me, no charming ticks and clicks for me. You really should try ripping some of your drops to PC and run them through CR and see what the fuss is all about. Unless you are just over the whole thing, and about done with it all by now.
     
    arisinwind likes this.
  5. Chris Schoen

    Chris Schoen Rock 'n Roll !!!

    Location:
    Maryland, U.S.A.
    I am very fussy about surface noise, and usually don't even keep a record if it has an irritating "pop" or "tick". There are a few, but so faint, and not repeating as it plays, that I doubt I would bother at this point.
    Maybe when I retire, and have more time to futz around. I do realize that it is a great audio tool, and for those who have records that are rare, or otherwise good sounding, but for the "pops" and "ticks" it is quite useful. :righton:
     
    Grant likes this.
  6. stetsonic

    stetsonic Forum Resident

    Location:
    Finland
    SF and RX use their own file formats for the metadata and AFAIK they are mutually incompatible. In RX you can export your markers into a plain ol' text file; I don't have SF installed at the moment so I don't know if there's a similar option. If there was, then theoretically you could try to convert the marker information so that it would be readable by the other program by editing the text file accordingly. This is how RX's formatting would look like:

    Marker file version: 1
    Time format: Time
    Marker 1 00:01:20,00000000
    Marker 2 00:03:12,96678005
    Marker 3 00:04:34,20163265


    At the very least exporting the markers in RX lets you save the exact timings.
     
    ghost rider likes this.
  7. quicksrt

    quicksrt Senior Member

    Location:
    Los Angeles
    That "Rocks" quadraphonic LP (you recall) I dropped some years ago - got the CR treatment eventually and the result... it went from a really nice drop to pure perfection. And that album is hard to find in the wild I've noticed. So yes, clean tracking rare records, and newish stylus + CR + stunning perfection!
     
    Chris Schoen likes this.
  8. Chris Schoen

    Chris Schoen Rock 'n Roll !!!

    Location:
    Maryland, U.S.A.
    :righton:
     
  9. ghost rider

    ghost rider Forum Resident

    Location:
    Bentonville AR
    I figured out that you have to hit the spacebar first otherwise it go
    But if I save the RX file as a wav file it works. Both ways. If I save a wav file in SF the markers are present when I open in RX. So it has to do with how RX deals with flac.
     
  10. stetsonic

    stetsonic Forum Resident

    Location:
    Finland
    Whoa, colour me stupid but I've never realized before that wav format itself actually does support cue markers. Even more interesting then that flac markers don't work here. Could it be the implementation has changed in some point and SF doesn't understand the newer version? I know, I'm just clutching at straws here...
     
  11. seastman

    seastman Forum Resident

    Location:
    USA
    I asked Brian (the developer of ClickRepair) about this earlier this year and he informed me that the Decrackle function was intended only for 78s and will be removed in a future update.
     
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  12. Grant

    Grant Life is a rock, but the radio rolled me!

    That's too bad because I find it useful in some situations.
     
  13. Robert C

    Robert C Forum Resident

    Location:
    London, UK
    I hope he reconsiders. His decrackle function is very useful!
     
    Grant likes this.
  14. PoeRaider

    PoeRaider Forum Resident

    Schiit tends to discontinue products fairly quickly if the sales numbers aren't up to par. I think it helps them keep costs down, they just re-purpose the chassis for other products.

    The Jil is a pretty nice ADC, I'm glad I picked one up when it was available.
     
  15. AVTechMan

    AVTechMan Forum Resident

    Location:
    Texas, USA
    While I haven't read through this long thread, I thought I would give my insight on my proposed workflow for my needledrops.

    While I know many here are using their PC to do the drops, I have the Tascam DA-3000 to where I can just transfer the files to the PC after recording for processing. Though I do have the RME Fireface UFX audio interface I use that mostly for my video editing work.

    Anyway I have my Technics SL-D2 table with the AT95 EX cart going to my Schiit Mani preamp to my Mackie 1402 analog mixer then output to the DA-3000 using the XLR connections. I was also wondering whether to use the low cut switch on the mixer as well or best to just record as is.

    As for recording levels I have the reference level on the DA-3000 set at -16dB with peaks around -12dB during some test record monitoring. I would say it would be good to have the peaks around -12dB correct? I know that if I ran a 1kHz signal through the chain that 0 dB on the Mackie would be -16dB on the DA-3000.

    I have read that its best to do the needledrops using headphones rather than loudspeakers to get an accurate neutral sound with all the imperfections that vinyl has. I have the Sony MDR-7506 headphones to do this task. For processing I have Izotope RX5 Advanced which should do all that I need for sound processing.

    Does this sound like a good workflow, or are some improvements needed? I also plan to transfer cassette tapes (sermon tapes from my late mother) and other obscure material.
     
  16. BrilliantBob

    BrilliantBob Select, process, CTRL+c, CTRL+z, ALT+v

    Location:
    Romania
    In my SONY PS-HX500 TT I have the same ADC like in your TASCAM. I record my needledrops in the highest resolution possible (5.6MHz DSD) and then I convert it to PCM 384/32 with the free TEAC Hi-Res Editor software. From this point, I can make any quality post-processing tasks. I often use oversampling by converting DSD to PCM or PCM to DSD because I observed oversampling is good for noise removal. My final needledrop resolution is PCM 96/24.
     
    kohoutek likes this.
  17. Casey737

    Casey737 Forum Resident

    Hello all - first I want to thank everyone that has contributed to this thread over the years as I have learned a lot. I have been an active 'needledropper' for many years and my workflow and equipment has evolved greatly in no small part to the folks here.

    However, I now have a question that I would like advice on. When I capture my recordings I am seeing a consistent signal across the entire recording at about 32kHz (recording at 96). I know this is above the range of human hearing but bothers me none the less. I record 10-20 seconds of audio with the needle hovering over the record before I drop the needle and begin recording and usually use that to do a spectral de-noise after recording. But, the fact that that noise is there still bothers me and I want to get rid of it. It is stronger on the left channel than the right.

    I am using good shielded cables (Audioquest) from TT (VPI Scout) to preamp (Vincent Pho-701) and preamp to ADC (Tascam UH-7000) and Audioquest USB cable to PC. This problem remains even after I upgraded the preamp and the preamp has a separate PS that site on the other side of the TT. I have upgraded all my power cables to shielded Pangea cables. I have isolated all the power cables to their own power conditioning power strip.

    So, does anyone know what would cause this at that frequency? Don't think this is a ground loop as that is usually a much lower frequency. I'm thinking it has to be from the computer in the A to D conversion. Last thing I will do is lubricate the platter bearing and motor bearing (but that is isolated w/ this TT) to see if that helps but doubt it will make any impact.

    Comments and suggestions welcome.

    thanks
     
    ghost rider likes this.
  18. stetsonic

    stetsonic Forum Resident

    Location:
    Finland
    I hardly know anything about electronics but could it be coming from a 32 kHz crystal oscillator? I think those things are used in microcontrollers and such.
     
    BrilliantBob likes this.

  19. I've seen this in needledrops I've done and it is in the recording itself. Some tracks will have this constant frequency while others do not. I believe it is injected into the recording by the recording equipment. I've seen these frequency lines at various frequencies and some recording will have multiple lines.
     
  20. ghost rider

    ghost rider Forum Resident

    Location:
    Bentonville AR
    Me too. I always wondered what that was but never asked. I have seen after dithering a 96k file down to 44.1 the noise appears from dithering. Used to be pretty consistent when I learned the noise profile in denoise I had a large spike around 38k. Never figured out what it was either. As you can see from a file I recorded years ago with a AT-OC9 the second I recorded a few days ago with the XX2
    [​IMG]
    [​IMG]
     
  21. Stefan

    Stefan Senior Member

    Location:
    Montreal, Canada
    I seem to recall reading something about pilot tones on analog tapes up in the high 20k to low 30k area so that can account for those kind of single lines on a needledrop recording. However, that doesn't seem to be Caesy737's issue because he's getting the lines even when the needle is not in the groove. It's some sort of electrical source that's occurring even with the cabling upgrades, etc. I often have electrical interference with mine as well and although it's annoying, they're always above 20kHz. I record to Cockos Reaper partially because it allows me to apply effects to the incoming signal in real time. I apply an RX 7 denoise module to help reudce them but it's impossible to catch them all as such signals seem to come from all around and vary in frequency. I live on a condo so neighbours running their microwaves can show up on my needledrops (mine does!) but fortunately those are above 20kHz.
     
  22. Casey737

    Casey737 Forum Resident

    Yeah, pretty sure it's something in the house. Weirdest thing is that I recorded an album side the other night and when I looked at the file I didn't see the noise start until the middle of the second song. No flippin' idea what changed to make the noise start. Maybe it's my plasma TV upstairs. guess I will have to go around unplugging things one at a time until I find it. Or, live with it and de-noise. Pretty sure the second one will win.
     
  23. BrilliantBob

    BrilliantBob Select, process, CTRL+c, CTRL+z, ALT+v

    Location:
    Romania
    The 32 kHz ADC crystal oscillator signal is present in all my needledrops too.

    Details about microcontrollers and the 32-kHz Crystal Oscillators used by Texas Instruments in their ADCs, here:

    http://www.ti.com/lit/an/slaa322d/slaa322d.pdf

    [​IMG]
     
    Last edited: Jan 29, 2020
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  24. Casey I apologize for missing your statement about the tone being there even when not playing an album.

    Check around your equipment area and move electrical items back away from the equipment and cabling. Something in your room or house maybe injecting that tone. I found my satellite TV box to be especially noisy.
     
  25. mj_patrick

    mj_patrick Senior Member

    Location:
    Elkhart, IN, USA
    Now that I've got a little more time under my belt with capturing vinyl albums, I'd like to just say that when all the conditions are right, when you can get a great take off of a clean vinyl album and have to do minimal digital repair, it can sound phenomenal, and in most cases where that has occurred it has stomped all over the CD issue(s) I've compared it to.
     
    arisinwind likes this.

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